28 Oct How Compliance and Cost are Rewiring Global Mobility

Global mobility used to be about logistics, incentives, and career opportunities. Now it sits at the intersection of three hard forces: rising costs, stricter enforcement, and employees who are more selective than ever about uprooting their lives. The “nice-to-have” era of relocations is over. Mobility leaders are now operating in a world where every move must be defensible—commercially, fiscally, and legally.

Across recent studies (WHR, KPMG, AON, OECD) and policy shifts, a clear pattern has emerged: compliance has gone from background admin to the organizing principle of global work. That shift is reshaping how, where, and even whether companies move people across borders.

Cost pressures and shifting assignment patterns

Cash is still the dominant constraint. WHR’s 2024 benchmarking shows that around two-thirds of relocation programs put cost reduction at the top of their priorities. Housing is the most visible pressure point. Markets like the UK and the Netherlands have seen rents rise so sharply that traditional “go-to” destinations are now borderline unaffordable for many assignees and employers.

Instead of automatically approving long-term moves, businesses are:

• Demanding granular cost projections and ROI modeling
• Favoring short-term assignments, extended business travel, or hub roles
• Shifting some activity to more affordable regions such as Eastern Europe or the Gulf

Economic uncertainty means even business-critical moves are sometimes stalled—not because the role isn’t needed, but because the cost and risk balance has changed.

The new rules of work: when compliance got personal

In parallel, the compliance environment has hardened. Over the past year, employment rules stopped being abstract law and became the operating system of day-to-day management.

Governments have moved from principle-setting to outcome enforcement. Worker-protection reforms are no longer aspirations; they now dictate who can be hired, under what status, at what pay, and with what time-off entitlements. What used to feel like internal policy choices—how you classify people, structure their hours, or reward them—now sits squarely in the sights of regulators.

The convergence is striking:

• Boundaries between employees, contractors, and platform workers are narrowing
• Pay transparency rules are tied directly to equality enforcement
• Definitions of “working time” are increasingly used to validate tax and social contributions

For global mobility, this means assignment design, remote arrangements, and even “light-touch” global roles are now compliance decisions first, people decisions second.

Tax compliance, digitalization and permanent establishment risk

Tax has undergone the same transformation. Reporting is no longer a periodic chore; in many countries it is real-time and fully digital. Systems like the UK’s RTI require near-instant payroll data submissions, leaving little room for manual corrections or late filings.

On the corporate side, the OECD’s Pillar Two global minimum tax is pushing authorities to scrutinize where revenue and workforce costs actually sit. That logic naturally extends to mobile employees. If your assignee or remote worker is effectively running a market from their kitchen table abroad, local authorities may view that as permanent establishment (PE) risk—regardless of what your org chart says.

For mobility teams, this raises the stakes on:

• Tracking where people physically work and for how long
• Aligning assignment structures with real business activity
• Working with tax to understand when remote or hybrid setups become a taxable presence

Many employers are pairing geo-tracking and governance tools with Employer of Record (EOR) models to reduce PE exposure in countries where they lack a legal entity.

Immigration: tighter entry, higher stakes

Immigration regimes are moving towards selective openness: more routes for high-paid, high-skilled roles, but tougher thresholds and more expensive sponsorship. The UK’s 2025 reforms—higher minimum salaries, increased skills thresholds, greater costs, and tighter rules for dependants—are a preview of where other advanced economies are heading.

At the same time, “right-to-work” obligations are expanding beyond classic employees to include contractors and platform workers. That effectively collapses any compliance distinction between an assignee, a contractor on a local project, and a gig worker engaged by the business: everyone has to be fully verified, documented, and auditable.

Digital border systems (like the EU’s EES and ETIAS) will make travel patterns more visible than ever, further tightening oversight of frequent business travelers and shadow assignees.

Employee experience, fatigue and new expectations

Against this backdrop, assignees themselves are more cautious. Younger, single employees are still often enthusiastic about overseas moves, but families are increasingly resistant. Partners’ careers, schooling, dual taxation, pension gaps, and the stress of multiple relocations contribute to assignment fatigue.

At the same time, hybrid and remote roles have shown employees that global careers do not always require a full physical move. That’s pushing mobility teams to reinvent how they design offers:

• Core-flex models that keep immigration and core compliance non-negotiable, while flexing flights, family support, or housing
• More honest conversations about tax, retirement contributions, and long-term financial impact
• Hybrid arrangements that mix shorter in-country stints with remote periods, instead of one long relocation

Done well, this not only improves acceptance rates but also feeds directly into retention and employer brand.

Technology, data and ESG as strategic levers

Technology is no longer optional infrastructure; it’s the only way to keep up. Most organizations already use tools for cost projections, compensation management, and tracking days in-country—and a majority plan to keep investing. The best programs are using data to:

• Segment policies by profile, location and business need
• Identify where moves are over- or under-supported
• Surface early warning signs on compliance, service failures, or assignment failure risk
• Demonstrate mobility’s contribution to hiring, retention and growth

ESG adds another layer of scrutiny and opportunity. As more companies report on environmental and social impact, mobility teams are under pressure to reduce the carbon and waste footprint of moves. That means fewer large shipments, more “discard and donate” approaches, greater use of furniture rental, and more thoughtful choices about housing location and commute patterns.

The great global redirect

Put together, these forces are triggering what you could call a great global redirect. As some countries push toward stricter disclosure, heavier taxation, and more demanding immigration rules, others are actively positioning themselves as simpler, faster alternatives for global hiring and investment.

For global mobility leaders, this means two things:

1. Build an integrated compliance backbone that can withstand real-time tax scrutiny, digital immigration, and evolving worker-protection regimes.
2. Develop location intelligence as a core capability—knowing where regulatory pressure is becoming unsustainable, and where emerging markets are intentionally opening up space for growth.

In a decade defined by enforcement, agility has become a competitive advantage. The organizations that will win are not those that avoid complexity altogether, but those that can navigate it deliberately—moving people where it makes strategic, financial, and regulatory sense, and proving that every assignment stands up to scrutiny.